


New Paint

by fauxtales



Series: Becoming Human Again [11]
Category: Kingdom Hearts (Video Games)
Genre: Domestic, Established Relationship, Fluff, Healthy Coping Mechanisms, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Naminé/Xion, Isa and Naminé being friends and helping each other is so important to me, M/M, Painting, Panic Attacks, Past Abuse, Post-Kingdom Hearts III, Recovery, i just think they're sweet, implied PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-12
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-20 08:54:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30002400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fauxtales/pseuds/fauxtales
Summary: "White. All the walls around him are white. And not just the walls - the floor, the ceiling, the furniture. The only splashes of color that exist in this otherwise blank space come from the art Naminé has tacked up on the walls, but it’s not enough to drown out the endless white closing in on him and threatening to crush him. Large windows and long halls, endless nothing for as far as he can see, a constant presence just over his shoulder -Isa runs."Isa and Naminé take on an art project in hopes of healing from some of their past trauma.
Relationships: Isa & Naminé (Kingdom Hearts), Isa/Lea (Kingdom Hearts)
Series: Becoming Human Again [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1890835
Comments: 2
Kudos: 14





	New Paint

The first time Isa goes to visit Naminé in the mansion, he has a panic attack.

It has nothing to do with her and little to do with the building itself. In fact, he’s perfectly fine as they walk through the foyer and up the stairs, making their way through the mellow orange-brown of a majority of the mansion. Lea’s elbow brushes against his and Isa finds his excitement almost overpowering his anxiety at seeing Naminé again. It feels like the rest of Twilight Town, muted in a nostalgic sort of way that gives the feel of endless summer. It’s almost comfortable.

It is only when they make it to Naminé’s studio that Isa’s hands begin to shake. Lea moves forward to greet the young girl, impressively comfortable with her considering their past - then again, Axel was the one who let her go, so maybe they developed some sort of comradery - and they begin to exchange news. How are things in the new house? Does Naminé have everything she needs here? Have Xion and Roxas become too annoying to handle yet?

Isa hears all of it as if through water. He’s still standing in the doorway, locked in place as his eyes flick around the room, his breathing coming in short, sharp gasps. He can’t seem to make himself take another step inside, can’t join the conversation, can’t seem to make any sound at all.

White. All the walls around him are white. And not just the walls - the floor, the ceiling, the furniture. The only splashes of color that exist in this otherwise blank space come from the art Naminé has tacked up on the walls, but it’s not enough to drown out the endless white closing in on him and threatening to crush him. Large windows and long halls, endless nothing for as far as he can see, a constant presence just over his shoulder -

Isa runs.

He’s told later that Lea and Naminé did notice his distress and tried to ask him what was wrong, but Isa doesn’t remember it. All he remembers is his vision flickering with white and grey and then turning around to leave. His legs carry him through the mansion, down the stairs and out the door; he makes it to the front garden before Lea catches up to him. Then it’s messy tears and hurried apologies as Isa does everything he can to get away; from the white, from Lea, from the mistakes that he made. From all of the memories that came rushing back all at once, threatening to overwhelm him.

They go to a café for lunch with Naminé instead.

After that, Isa avoids going upstairs in the mansion. Visiting Naminé is fine, certainly something he would like to do more of - she’s a sweet girl and one of the few people as comfortable sitting quietly together while they do different things as Isa is. When she starts doing research on how they can all begin to actually recover from years of abuse, their visits take on a new turn; not really therapy sessions, as no matter how wise Naminé is, she is still a teenager, but a time for them both to reflect and exchange ideas, talk about what has worked for them and what hasn’t. Naminé suggests Isa start keeping a journal; Isa recommends Naminé try gardening. They start both projects together.

Of course, when someone else comes to visit as well, things aren’t nearly as calm. Lea is talkative and energetic; Roxas is equally as energetic, but still fairly awkward around Naminé, always jumping up with some excuse to run off and take a moment to himself; Xion has become quite the gossip, with her and Naminé’s bond growing all the closer as Xion begins to coax Naminé out of the mansion more and Naminé in turn teaches Xion how to draw. Isa likes when they are all together, finds himself looking forward to the nice days when they can sit in the back garden and have a picnic, Xion and Naminé getting lost in each other while Lea and Roxas get up to who-knows-what at the edge of the garden. Isa finds himself opening up his journal to record those moments, jotting down his thoughts as he watches his family live their lives around him.

In the back of his mind however, he is in that room. It hovers behind him, one story up and to the left, a constant thought nagging at him. A single room that can put him into a panic. It’s frustrating. Isa tries to ignore it.

At some point, Naminé gets some new paint. A gift from the Radiant Garden group, it’s a mixture of colors that are hard to find in this world; Naminé is thrilled. She talks excitedly about it all through lunch and the walk home, and Isa finds himself getting excited with her; how can he not? Anyone connected to Sora is predisposed to having the most infectious smile around. Then, she makes an offer that catches Isa completely off guard.

“I was thinking that maybe I’d paint that room. Would you like to help me?”

Isa freezes in place. This isn’t something he would ever expect, the last place he thought this conversation would go. He blinks down at Naminé, at those grey-blue eyes staring thoughtfully up at him. “Really?”

The smile on Naminé’s face is soft. “It’s a big room and I doubt I’m tall enough to get the whole wall painted by myself. Besides…” Here, Naminé glances at her feet, shuffling back and forth as she clasps her hands low in front of her. “I’m starting to understand why the room makes you uncomfortable. I was fine for a while, because it was all I had ever known, but lately… it just brings up more bad memories than good.”

Isa feels his throat tightening up, though not for the reasons he expects. The thought of those endless white walls always makes his pulse race, even after months away, but that is not the cause. Instead, Isa finds himself fighting the urge to pull this small girl into a hug, to fight off anything that might make her feel bad. It’s a reaction he’s had plenty of times to Lea’s downswings, and a couple times even with Xion and Roxas expressing fear, but never has he felt it so strongly for Naminé. Perhaps he’s become more attached than he thought.

When did he start adopting troubled teenagers all the time? That’s supposed to be Lea’s thing...

“But the lighting in there is so nice, I’d love to be able to use it as a studio again,” Naminé continues, perking up and smiling at Isa once more. “I figured, why not paint it and see if that helped?”

“It seems like a good conclusion to me,” Isa says, giving a small nod. He can feel a smile tugging at his lips, some mixture of excitement and anxiety swirling in his veins at the thought of destroying all the white and replacing it with something better. “I’d love to help out.”

“Great!” The little bounce of excitement Naminé does reminds him of Xion. He doesn’t remember Naminé ever doing that until they started getting closer. Naminé grabs Isa’s hand in both of hers and gives it a squeeze. “I’ll get everything set up in the next few days and let you know when I’m ready, okay?”

“Okay.”

As Isa watches Naminé disappear into the woods back to the mansion, he feels warm. This is a strange turn of events, a strange feeling to have humming in his chest, but maybe that’s a good thing. Over a decade of shutting down his emotions means that a lot of them feel strange, so it shouldn’t be all that surprising anymore. It just means that he’s letting himself feel.

When he tells Lea about the plan to paint the White Room, he seems more excited about it than Isa is.

“That’s such a great project!” Lea says, gesturing wildly with a whisk. He has flour smeared across his face and if he keeps whipping that whisk around, brownie batter is going to join it. Isa leans against the counter and pulls his coffee mug in against his chest as Lea continues mixing. “I’ve been saying for months that we need to convert that room into something else. I mean, the rest of the mansion has finally been cleaned out, and you and Naminé have done a lot of work on the gardens outside, but that room is like a shadow over the whole thing.” Lea frowns. “Well. Not really a shadow, I guess, since it’s white and all, but like… a reverse shadow, I guess.”

“A blemish.”

“A blemish, yeah!”

Isa chuckles softly. “I agree. It’ll be nice to not have such a reminder looming above us all the time.” He smiles down at his mug, swirling the liquid slightly in his hands. “It’ll be good for Naminé too. I don’t know how she could stand to spend so much time in that room before now…”

“I mean, it probably felt like home to her, right?” Lea says, his voice hesitant. He glances over his shoulder briefly at Isa before focusing back on his cooking. “You’ve said it yourself, people deal with this shit differently. And for her, she was born in that whiteness and lived in it for most of her existence. Even with memories from Sora and Kairi of other places, it was all she had first hand contact with. Is it all that surprising that it would feel less hostile to her than a world she’s never known?”

“I suppose not…” Isa murmurs, thinking over the logic of that. Of course it makes sense; even in awful situations, people find comfort in a space that they can call their own, and that room with it’s white walls was hers. Naminé added her splashes of color to it, made it a safe place for herself. “It must be hard to realize that the place that has kept you feeling safe for so long suddenly feels… bad.”

The expression on Lea’s face when he glances at Isa this time is searching. Isa sees it out of the corner of his eye and keeps his own gaze firmly on his coffee cup. He doesn’t want to talk about how he has first hand experience with that. He doesn’t want to talk about the way Axel and Saïx became that for each other just before everything broke. Lea seems to understand, as he lets it pass. “Yeah. Must be.”

There is a small lull in conversation after that, as Lea pours the brownie batter into the pan and Isa sips thoughtfully at his coffee. It’s not a bad lull, not crackling with tension the way the silences between them used to be. It’s comfortable, in its way, both of them lost in thought and memory together. Then Lea makes some joke about Isa taking forever with his coffee to avoid doing the dishes and Isa laughs and things move on from there. Isa sets his mug aside and starts on the dishes while Lea pulls out the ingredients for the next dish - buckeyes - and the afternoon continues on in relative peace.

Three days later, Isa gets a text from Naminé. It contains only three emojis: a smiley face, a paint bucket, and a flame. Isa smiles and shoots back a thumbs up and a suggestion for a time. Then he sighs and stretches, nearly elbowing Lea in the face where he’s curled in to cling to Isa, still half asleep.

“Hey, watch it,” Lea grumbles, scooting in closer on the bed to tangle their legs together and bury his face in Isa’s side. Isa shifts to lay his arm across Lea’s shoulders, his hand threading gently through Lea’s hair as he smiles fondly down at him.

“Sorry. But that’s what you get when you sleep practically on top of me.” The sun is filtering through the windows, golden and warm as usual. It’s later in the day than usual however; Lea tends to get up fairly early. “What are you still doing in bed, anyway? Not that I mind, it’s nice to wake up with you still here, but it’s kinda late, isn’t it?”

Lea groans into Isa’s chest. He rubs his face against him, as if trying to wake himself up more - or maybe pretend Isa isn’t talking to him. Either way, he looks distinctly like an irate cat. Then Lea sighs, lifting his head up just enough to blink sleepily at Isa. “Roxas had a nightmare.”

“What?” Isa frowns, his hand stilling in Lea’s hair. “Is he okay? You could have woken me.”

Lea is shaking his head before Isa has finished his sentence. “We both know that you wouldn’t be of any help with him. He’s fine. I calmed him down, then we sat on the couch and talked for a while. I’m going to have to make more brownies for the picnic though, we ate through quite a few.”

Despite the assurances that it’s all okay, Isa still finds himself feeling somewhat guilty. He really is very little help when it comes to Roxas’s trauma, considering how much of it he had a direct hand in. Xion as well, though she has reacted to it all differently; she’ll go to Isa for advice and help calming down. Roxas just gets more agitated with Isa around. Still… “I can’t believe I just slept through that.”

“It’s fine, babe, really.” Lea smiles gently at him, bringing a hand up to cup Isa’s face. “You needed the rest and if I knew you were in here fretting, it would have just stressed me out more. Trust me, you’re fine.” Lea stretches up to press a sleepy kiss to Isa’s lips, only to pull back after a moment. “Ugh. Morning breath.”

“As if you’re any better.”

“Hah, whatever.”

They lay in bed for a while longer as Isa waits to hear from Naminé. He trails his finger along Lea’s spine as Lea tells him about his to-do list for the day and how it keeps getting bigger; they’re having a big “family reunion” picnic at the mansion in a few days, and Lea has been trying to bake as much as he can beforehand. The Destiny Island kids and the Radiant Garden group will all be coming, which means there will be a lot of mouths to feed. Lea will cook most of the actual food the day of, but deserts can be prepped in advance.

“I’m going to have to find a new hiding place for the brownies though, cuz Roxas saw where I got them from last night,” Lea sighs. Isa laughs softly, enjoying the moment as it hits him just how normal their conversations have become. They aren’t talking about missions or saving the world or, god forbid, Kingdom Hearts. There is nothing to fear in the future but whether or not there are enough brownies for everyone at the picnic. They’ve begun to plan pieces of their lives again, begun to move forward from the stagnated place they were stuck in under Xemnas, then the chaos they lived through in the preceding months of his initial demise. It’s incredible. It’s so very strange.

“Yeah, I guess you will,” Isa murmurs, burying his face in Lea’s hair and smiling. He didn’t realize that this was all he wanted until he had it, and now it’s almost too much to believe.

Isa’s phone buzzes on the nightstand and pulls him from his thoughts. He reaches over to grab it, still holding Lea against him as he checks over Naminé’s response: a thumbs up to 2pm. Perfect. Then he checks the time and sighs. “It’s almost ten. We should get up before Xion comes in to check if we’re sick.”

“As if she’s awake yet,” Lea groans. He wraps his arms around Isa and squeezes, rubbing his face against Isa’s chest again. Yup. A cat. “But I suppose you’re right. I need to make breakfast.”

“I can help.”

“Thanks, babe.”

The rest of the morning passes by in a happy blur. Lea prepares breakfast as usual, though with Isa hovering around to grab him things and occasionally distract him with kisses. Roxas and Xion shuffle out during one of these distracted moments and proceed to make gagging noises for the next ten minutes; Isa wishes the blush on his cheeks would go away, but at least the smile seems to be just as firm. After they eat, the teenagers do the dishes while Isa and Lea sit at the table, Lea yelling out the occasional suggestion of how to do the dishes faster while Isa shoots every hair brained idea down and Xion laughs at him. Roxas seems just as likely to try them as not, which should be cause for concern, but Isa can’t bring himself to take any of it that seriously.

It’s a good morning. It’s so similar to every other morning they have that it will likely fade into the blur of daily memory, but that’s okay. Isa will do his best to remember this feeling, this warmth in his chest, even if he can’t remember the details of the moment. That’s the part that matters, isn’t it?

By the time Isa leaves for the mansion, Lea is deep into his cooking, Xion is picking carefully at a guitar on the couch, and Roxas is long gone skateboarding around town. They’ve all found their various outlets, the things they use to occupy their time and make them feel human. Whole. It makes it easier for Isa to leave for a few hours, because he can be more sure that there won’t be a catastrophic meltdown even if they aren’t all there.

Walking through town is always a pleasant experience, one that Isa tends to let drag as long as he can. The perpetual sunset that bathes the city ensures that the buildings are always gorgeous, and Isa enjoys taking his time, taking in the warmth of color around him. Not today, however. Today, he is excited to get to the mansion and see what colors Naminé has gotten for them and what she has planned. He’s dressed in his gardening clothes - worn blue overalls and a lavender t-shirt that he picked up at the thrift store specifically to ruin - and there’s a part of him that is thrilled at the idea of adding paint stains to the denim. There’s something cathartic about the idea of making a mess of something pristine that Isa has always been drawn to, though he’ll rarely admit it.

“Isa!” Naminé waves at him from a window on the second floor. She’s leaning out slightly to water the flowers in the window box, the pink elephant watering can in her hands one that Isa knows was a gift from Xion. “Come on in, I’ll meet you on the landing!”

Isa waves back and does as he’s told, heading into the mansion. It really has cleaned up nicely; when Naminé first moved in here, it had still looked abandoned and vaguely haunted, broken furniture and dust the predominant features. Now all the scrap wood has been piled in the backyard, the dust and cobwebs have been cleared away, and there are any number of small projects that have been done to further clean the space up. The main foyer is still woefully empty, the lack of furniture obvious in the vast open space, but Naminé has filled the walls at least with art pieces, giving the large room the feel of an art gallery of sorts.

“Oh good, you wore work clothes.” Naminé’s voice echoes through the open space from the second floor balcony. She crosses around from the library to stand at the landing in the center of the space, smiling down at Isa. She has her hair pulled back in a messy bun, and is dressed similarly to Isa in overalls and a t-shirt, though her color scheme is different: a black shirt with white, heavily paint-stained overalls. “We’re going to want to tie your hair back too. Unless you’re planning on dying it.”

“No thanks! I’d prefer to keep my hair a natural color,” Isa responds, making his way up the stairs to the second floor. Naminé laughs, the sound echoing crystal bright around the open space. Isa smiles. He’s well aware that blue is hardly a natural hair color in most worlds, including Twilight Town itself and Destiny Islands, where many of Naminé’s core memories come from. It gives his words the context of a joke, something he likely wouldn’t have noticed a few months ago, and certainly wouldn’t have been able to laugh at. Now, he finds it’s quite simple a thing to say, if it makes someone he likes laugh.

Oh no. He’s spent way too much time around Lea.

Naminé leads Isa to the White Room, handing him a hair tie from the collection of them that live on her wrist and setting her watering can on a window sill to be returned to later. She fills him in on the plan as she walks, though Isa gets the feeling she’s trying to hype herself up for this as much as him. They both struggle with this room, and the memories associated with it, and even entering that too white space tends to make Isa panic. He gets his hair into a tight bun at the base of his neck, as neat as he can without bobby pins, then they both stop in front of the heavy wooden doors.

For a moment, they stand in silence. Naminé seems to be waiting for Isa to make the first move, as he has the stronger reaction to the room; she, at least, can enter the space without hyperventilating. Isa’s hands flex at his sides, clenching and unclenching repeatedly as he takes a few deep breaths.

“We can do this another day, if you want,” Naminé says, her voice quiet. Her hands are clasped in front of her, only the nervous movement of one thumb there to give away her nerves. “You don’t have to push yourself.”

Isa shakes his head. “No, it’s okay. I can do this.” He takes a deep breath and opens the door.

The bright of the room is the first thing to hit him. Sunlight filters in through the thin white curtains, setting the whole of the room alight. It’s blinding, in a way the Castle That Never Was never, well, was. Even with the amount of white in that place, it was always dampened by the shades of grey, the shadow of a darkness that they all lived closer to than the light. That, at least, makes being in this room a bit easier. Even if the light is still hard for Isa to look at, even if the white still pulls memories from his mind to reflect back at him, at least the shadows here don’t threaten to swallow him whole.

Plus, the light isn’t the only thing here. As Isa steps inside and looks around, he sees that Naminé has gotten them all set up. There is a sheet in one section of the floor, paint buckets with colorful labels arranged for easy use. Brushes and rollers and paint tape have all been set on the table, and any art that had been in the room has been removed. The blank of the walls is certainly unnerving, but Isa tries to remind himself that they’re going to be painting it. It’s not empty space trying to press in on him; it’s a blank canvas ready to be filled in.

Maybe he can do this after all.

Naminé steps in after him, letting Isa have his moment. He can feel her watching him, gauging his reaction, but Isa can’t say that he minds all that much. He understands. They both want to do this, but it’s probably a bad idea to push it if he starts panicking. After a long moment however, Isa takes another deep breath and nods. “Okay. Let’s do this.”

The smile on Naminé’s face when he turns back to her is bright and excited. “Okay!”

Since Naminé is the one who will use this space, Isa leaves the planning to her. While they mix a few colors that Naminé hadn’t gotten to, she explains what she wants, and what order she thinks they should go about it to cause the least amount of unwanted mess. This means starting with the right hand wall.

“I want to set up that side of the room as the messier part of the studio,” Naminé explains. “Where I can do more experimental stuff and not have to worry so much about the mess. If we paint that wall right, a little extra paint splatter will hardly be noticeable.”

They start in the most cathartic way possible: simply throwing paint at the wall. With all the paint mixed and opened, an array of color spread around them, Naminé hands Isa a brush. “Would you do the honors?”

Isa blinks at the brush for a moment, suddenly unsure about this. What if it turns out bad? What if he messes the whole thing up? He’s not a painter; why in the world is Naminé trusting him like this? Trusting him to create something rather than destroy it? That seems unwise. It seems like an absolutely horrible idea, actually. He can’t do this. There’s no way he can do this-!

The white of the wall taunts him. Isa takes the brush. Naminé smiles gently. “Whatever color you want to start with is fine.”

Another choice. Isa looks around him, staring at all the paint cans, all the colors. Shades he hasn’t seen since living in Radiant Garden, an entire rainbow of color for him to choose from. His first inclination, as always, is to go for the blue. It’s his color, and there is something nice about the idea of disturbing the nothingness of that white with his color. But blue feels too cold; surrounded by all that white, it’ll just look like ice. Not how he wants to start this.

Isa dips the brush in a deep, fiery red. The paint drips from the bristles, liquid heat, as Isa brings the brush up, then makes a large arc with his arm, splattering red across the wall like he’s wielding a blade. It should probably look grisly, Isa thinks, the dripping red splatter across the white; instead, it just looks warm, a disturbance of color in the endless blank. Something unknots in Isa’s chest and some of the tension leaves his shoulders.

Yes, this was a wonderful idea.

The next few hours are spent on this single wall, throwing paint and finding ways to make it drip down the wall artistically. It’s messy and not at all professional; Isa isn’t even sure at the end of it that it could be called “good” in the art sense of the word. But that doesn’t matter. What matters is that Naminé seems to be having fun trying all these new techniques and directing Isa in which colors to prep, and Isa’s cheeks are starting to hurt from smiling so much. Looking at the other walls in the room is still difficult, the white looming over them, but the disruption of it as Isa adds a shock of bright blue to a section of the wall is more satisfying than Isa could have ever hoped.

Hours later, they both collapse on the floor. Isa leans his elbows against his paint spattered knees, while Naminé leans on a closed can of paint. They stare at the messy masterpiece of a wall in the slowly dying sunset and look over their progress.

“This took a bit longer than I was expecting,” Naminé says, a laugh clear in her voice. “But I like it. Not a bit of white on there.”

“I agree,” Isa nods, nearly running a hand through his hair before remembering how much paint is on his fingers. “It’s much easier to look at now.”

“Yes, it really is.”

After another minute or two of looking at their work, the break is over. They decide to leave the other walls for another day - it’s just too much to do now - and instead work on gathering up the brushes to bring down to the kitchen for a thorough wash. Naminé chatters excitedly about their next steps, about the vista she wants to paint on the back wall and how she might have to pop over to Destiny Islands to look at colors again, and it hits Isa all at once just how much more emotion is in her voice now. When they first met as Nobodies, Naminé was one who always seemed to have more emotion than others. She played the role of the sad, forgotten girl so well, Saïx had never bothered to question it. He assumed it was an act.

Then they were reconstructed and Naminé was given a body of her own and nothing changed. Her voice was still soft and a little sad, but it kept that dull forgotten feeling to it, making it seem to lack emotion by a Somebody’s standards. As if she didn’t quite know how to actually feel. Isa could relate, of course. He was the same way for a while - a long while - and it is only his relationship with Lea and constant prodding from Roxas and Xion that helped him remember how to feel again and how to express those feelings. Naminé has lived alone though. She hasn’t had that constant help.

Even so, she’s found her way. It warms Isa to realize it, to hear the true excitement and happiness in her voice, a voice she uses so much more now. It makes him smile.

“There you are!” It’s as they are cleaning the brushes in the big industrial sink in the kitchen that Lea finds them. He’s carrying a bag of takeout from one of the many small cafés around town and dressed much nicer than he was when Isa left him; the flour-coated sweatpants and apron have been replaced by a pair of dark ripped jeans and a red t-shirt. Isa freezes for a moment, struck by how effortlessly beautiful his boyfriend is. Naminé’s quiet laugh and sharp elbow gets him to tune back in, and he realizes that Lea is still talking.

“I looked all over this damn mansion for you two! Do you realize how big this place is? How many rooms we haven’t cleared out? I didn’t. It seems so much smaller when you only walk through like, three rooms regularly.” Lea sets his take out bag on the stainless steel table in the middle of the kitchen, still babbling away. “I forgot this place even had a kitchen! Which, frankly, it’s an obnoxious kitchen. This looks like it belongs in a restaurant, not someone’s home.”

“I imagine it was built to house an entire kitchen staff,” Naminé points out, flicking the water out of the paint brush she is currently cleaning. She glances around the large space. “Though, admittedly, I don’t use this kitchen much. The smaller one on the main floor is much cozier.”

“Two?” Lea blurts. Isa has to laugh at the incredulous tone of his voice. “There are two kitchens? Who the hell needs two kitchens?”

“Rich people, I guess,” Naminé laughs, shrugging.

“Don’t tell me you wouldn’t like more space to work, Lea.” Isa levels a knowing look at the redhead, who merely scoffs.

“I can only use one kitchen at a time though, no matter how big either one is.”

“Sure.” Isa sets the now clean brush on the towel to dry before turning to face Lea more fully. “So… why are you here, exactly?”

Lea looks shocked at being asked such a basic question. “To pick you up, of course! You’re way later than you said you were going to be, and I was in town already so I picked up some food and figured I’d walk you home.” Lea smiles, scratching at his head in something bordering embarrassment. “Yknow, if you want.”

Sometimes, Lea acts like they’re still awkward teenagers trying to figure this out. As if they haven’t been dating for over a year, haven’t been in love with each other for over a decade. Sure, most of that decade was pretty miserable, but they were both fairly aware of each other’s feelings, even when they were warped and twisted. Not that Isa can really blame him; he did a number on Lea’s confidence in knowing where they stand as Saïx. 

Isa returns Lea’s smile, his expression soft. “I would love to.”

They stand there, caught in a moment between them as Lea’s smile grows more sure. Then Naminé clears her throat and they both jump.

“Oh, but I need to help Naminé finish cleaning up first-”

“I got this,” Naminé says. She gives Isa a knowing smile, then pats his arm. “You go on. It’s been a long afternoon and I’m already home. Go spend time with yours.”

Sometimes, it’s easy to forget Naminé is a teenager. Especially when she’s gently urging a towel into Isa’s hands so he can dry them off and telling Lea about how well everything went today. She gently mentions checking in with each other when they plan the next day of painting and graciously accepts the food Lea picked up for her at the café. The entire time, her smile remains soft and knowing and far too aged for her few years in this world.

“You take care of yourself too,” Isa says, as Lea twines their fingers together. “I can always send Xion and Roxas over to bug you if you need it.”

Naminé smiles, and this time she looks her age. “Thank you. Walk home safe!”

Lea’s hand is warm in Isa’s as they walk the cooling streets of Twilight Town. With the summer sun fully set for the night, the air has cooled to a more bearable temperature. The lights of the town glow warmly, like stars that have fallen and been captured by the people of this world, then strung up between buildings to light their way. It’s nice. Calming. Isa loves it.

“So, I take it the painting went well?” Lea asks. Isa smiles and steps a bit closer, looping his arm around Lea’s before rejoining their hands. The warmth of their shoulders brushing is too hot for the weather but Isa savors it anyway.

“Yes, it did,” Isa says. “It felt really good, throwing color at all that nothing. Cathartic. We only managed to do the one wall, but that’s fine. We’ll finish the others another time.”

“I’m sure Naminé has a whole plan for them, right?”

“Yeah, she does.”

They don’t meet up to paint the next day, but they do the day after. It takes them well into the next week, but they do get the rest of the room painted, covering up all the white with bright, vibrant colors.

The back wall, with the door, is painted to look like a scene on Destiny Islands. It looks like the beach Riku and Kairi are so fond of, that so many of their memories with Sora take place on. The day they finish that wall, Xion and Roxas come over to visit. Isa leaves the three alone, allowing them to bask in memory that was never fully theirs but will forever make up a part of who they are.

The left wall gets a much simpler treatment. After much debate around the color, they end up painting it a solid, deep green. Naminé spends a day adding smaller details around the edge, swirling foliage and little yellow flowers that border the entire wall. The intention is for this wall to be a place for her to hang unfinished works in order to get some distance from them but still keep them in sight. Isa nods, not quite understanding but willing to help with whatever Naminé wants.

It’s the front wall that proves the hardest to design. Most of it is taken up by the large window that looks out over the mansion’s courtyard. This leaves them with little wall space to actually paint. With the bordering walls a mixture of green and random paint splatters, it is difficult to decide which color will look the best. Then again, they never were going for a fashionable room here. That was never the purpose of this project.

In the end, they pick a color that isn’t all that different from the white already there: pale lilac. It’s softer than the other walls in the room and the lightness of the color allows the bright sunlight to filter in easily. It compliments the green of the left wall well, and both colors can be found in the beach mural. It feels like a fitting finish to the room, and Isa finds satisfaction in painting over the nothing of white with a color that still feels light. As if he’s filling in a void with something gentler.

When they’re done, the only white left in the room is the ceiling. With so many different projects, neither of them had bothered to try keeping the floor clean, so it was a splattered mess, and in between mixing paint they ended up painting the large white table a myriad of colors. They should probably clean that up at some point but for now, Naminé just pushes it up against their paint splatter wall and smiles in satisfaction at the chaos of it.

“We did it.” The relief in Naminé’s voice is infectious.

“It seems we did.” Isa feels tension unknot from his shoulders as the hovering ache of panic about this room finally melts away. “Thank you, Naminé.”

“Thank you!” Naminé grabs Isa’s hand, giving it a small earnest squeeze in both of hers as she smiles up at him. “You’ll come over to paint with me again, right? I have other rooms, and a whole lot of canvas. You’re very good at this.”

Isa blinks down at her for a few moments in surprise. Then he looks around the room, at all they accomplished. Painting did feel nice. It was relaxing, figuring out which color to use next and watching the paints mix together. Lea has his cooking, Xion has her guitar, Roxas has his skateboard. Isa gardens, but there is only so much of that that can be done in a day. And besides, who ever said they could only each have one hobby to help them through the day?

The smile on Isa’s face feels brighter than it has in a while.

“I would love to.”


End file.
